One thing that really disturbs me is when parents feed their children words to say, as a way of giving their own view credibility. Today saw The Age newspaper art critic Robert Nelson out the front of his Melbourne home pontificating about the appropriateness of having the naked photograph of his then 6 year old daughter, Olympia, placed on the cover of Art Monthly, a government funded art magazine. The photo was taken by her mother, Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou.
His daughter, now 11, was with him, and never have I seen such a display of a young person completely out of her depth. The argument she has a view on is way beyond what she can comment on, and to top it all off, she wants to tackle the Prime Minister over comments he made!
Let me pull all this back about 100 paces. Young Olympia Nelson happened to appear on the front cover of this particular publication, as the publication was trying to show support for Bill Henson, a photographic artist who used a 13 year old girl as the subject of one of his pieces. It was an explicit image, and naturally, it was suspected to be pornographic, not artistic. The exhibition was cut short, criminal charges were thought about, but then dropped.
On 6 June 2008 it was reported in The Age that police will not prosecute Bill Henson over his photographs of naked teenagers, after they were declared “mild and justified” and given a PG rating by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, suggesting viewing by children under the age of 16 is suitable with parental guidance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Henson
So Art Monthly have decided to wade into the debate, defending Bill Henson, and doing so by plastering a 6 year old girl on the cover. It is not an explicit shot, but she is still naked. In doing this, they have made it very clear that there is nothing wrong with photographing young children naked. Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stated that he didn’t approve of the cover, and this is why the young girl at the centre of all this wants to take him on in this debate.
Out of all this, I am more disgusted in Robert Nelson, father of the young girl. He has dragged his daughter out in front of the media, made her act as if she was a 50 year old art critic with a lifetime of experience, and in the process, put her in way over her head. This was very evident when young Olympia stated that, “The Prime Minister needs to look at the shots and see what they mean.” When asked “What do they mean?”, she tried to rabbit on in mature-speak, but after a few seconds, turned to her Dad and said, “Can you help me out here?” And she wants to take on the Prime Minister? What a disgrace of a father to allow his daughter to go through all this, and fill her with a sense of importance way beyond her years?
We see this all the time with stage mothers, pageant mothers, football Dads, and any other area where a parent forces their child to live their life the way they want it, and force their views on their children. Yes, we all try and instill our values on our children. That’s normal, and within reason, acceptable. However, Robert Nelson has been irresponsible, both as a parent, and as a citizen who should be doing all he can to protect the most vulnerable in our community; children.
There are some things in life that, no matter what your view on them is, really are problematic, and will never cease to be controversial. Child nudity is one of those. We all have the childhood snaps of Mum and Dad taking pictures of us in the bath, or running around the house with a nappy on our heads stark naked. This is normal, and part of everyone’s funny memories. But to take naked child photography out of that light hearted normal family context and start seeing it as ‘art’ and the 3,4,5 or 6 year old as a nude ‘model’, then you are bordering on an area that is fraught with danger, and is to be avoided. The more you try and defend it, the deeper you sink into the quicksand.
I think Robert Nelson will find it hard to defend this view for much longer. But before he does that, he needs to defend that hideous shirt and bow tie combination he was wearing. Speaks volumes, really.
Enjoy your day.
